DNA tests fail to back up claims over Ingmar Bergman's father

Oct 19, 2011, 15:02 GMT

Stockholm - Claims that the legendary Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was not the biological son of Karin Bergman appeared disproved as DNA samples cited to support the claim were false, technology journal Ny Teknik reported Wednesday.

Ingmar Bergman died in 2007, at age 89.

Questions about Bergman's family history were raised after one of his nieces earlier this year commissioned a forensic laboratory to investigate DNA from two stamps. Initial results in May showed that the niece and Bergman were not related on the mother's side.

Ny Teknik later determined that only one stamp was analysed and several more letters and stamps were subsequently analysed.

The new report said that when the samples were cross-referenced with the DNA from laboratory staff, it emerged that they had been contaminated by a technician at the National Board of Forensic Medicine.

The agency said it would review its procedures, adding it was a new method.

The niece, Veronica Ralston, who supplied the stamps said she still believes that Bergman was a changeling.

Earlier this year she published a book suggesting that the baby Karin Bergman gave birth to was substituted for another baby, namely Ingmar.

The DNA results raised interest as many critics and Bergman researchers have noted that the family was a frequent theme in his work. His parents were the topic of the film The Best Intentions, directed by Danish director Bille August and scripted by Bergman.